


Leave it at That

by ossseous (ozean)



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bullying, Codependency, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Hogwarts, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Rating May Change, Sibling Incest, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-19 04:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11890323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozean/pseuds/ossseous
Summary: He hadn’t really thought much beyond that inevitable moment Newt found himself placed in Hufflepuff. He’d spent so much of his life up to that point constantly having to account for the future. It was a given when one happened to have the clumsiest little brother alive. Always having to remind him to tie his shoes when they’d been playing outside all day. Always reminding him to put his scarf back on after he’d take it off to climb a tree. Always reminding him the door was shut before he could turn and smack right into it.But at that moment, he found that he wasn’t quite sure what to do next.





	Leave it at That

**Author's Note:**

> So this was inspired by a prompt I saw on the kink meme. It might not be totally in line with what they were looking for but credit where credit is due:
> 
> https://fantasticbeasts-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/459.html?thread=262859#cmt262859 
> 
> I mean, they mentioned Petrellicest, how could I not?

He knew it would happen. The minute they called Newt’s name and he shuffled his way up to the stool so that they could promptly drop the hat on his head, he knew. He knew before Newt. He knew before the Sorting Hat. Maybe others in the hall suspected it. Judged him from just his looks alone. His awkward, gangly lope—too tall for an eleven-year-old and still fitting into his too long bones—gave way to the sheepish way he fidgeted on the stool. All but cowering under the attention of the hall. Too many pieces didn’t fit. Too bashful for a Gryffindor. His head ducked down too low for a Slytherin. His smile a little too goofy for a Ravenclaw. He almost wanted Newt to end up in one of those houses, if only to prove everyone wrong about him.

It would be a lie to say that was the only reason. Part of it subsisted under a little bite of jealousy—minuscule as it was. He didn’t have anyone to turn to when he was the one sitting up there only a year before. The hat hemmed and hawed as he silently begged and begged and _begged_ to be put in Hufflepuff. All he wanted was to see his parents’ excitement when he returned home for the holidays. They’d finally have a reason to be proud of him; another Hufflepuff in a long line of them.

But that hiss that thrummed out for him, _ah yes,_ _Slytherin--_ it was like a guillotine as the Slytherin table erupted, roaring to life as they welcomed their new comrade. He couldn’t share in their excitement as he numbly made his way over to a bench and joined his new house. There was a settling weight to that. Knowing it’d be his brand for the rest of his life. Even then, eleven years old, he wondered if he had always been destined for that. To be at odds no matter what path he took.

And no, when he returned home for the holidays that year, no one even mentioned the fact that he was a Slytherin, let alone congratulated him.

And then there was the part of him that very specifically wanted Newt in Slytherin, if just to keep him by his side. Every year, they gave the same old speech, how your house would be like your new family. But Newt was his family. No one else’s.

There was that silence that always fell as they awaited the verdict and no shocked gasps filled the hall when that damn hat preened and gleefully shouted _Hufflepuff_. The Hufflepuff table cheered and as Theseus might have expected, Newt looked unsure. At some point in the whole fanfare of the sorting ceremony, Newt managed to find him in the crowd. Perhaps it helped that Theseus chose to sit at the front, where all the spots left vacant by the absence of the previous year’s graduate laid ready to be filled by the newcomers. Maybe he had done that intentionally, maybe he had wanted Newt to be able to find him in that sea of faces. But locking eyes with him then might have only helped to further crumble Newt’s resolve.

For a split second there, as he stepped down and the next student walked up to the stool, he looked as though he might go to Theseus and the Slytherins regardless. He wondered if Newt begged the hat to be put in Slytherin, just as Theseus had begged to be put in Hufflepuff the year before? What a thought. Perhaps the hat had had enough of those Scamander boys with their wild ideas.

But all Theseus had to do was look pointedly to the Hufflepuff table and Newt understood what he had to do. He didn’t even make an attempt to look excited or happy as he sat down with his new family. Some clapped him on the back, some rubbed his shoulder, one even ruffled his hair. Not one of them registered the way his shoulders drew up at each touch, not one of them cared.

Theseus turned back on his bench. There were still names to be called, kids to be sorted, but for him the ceremony felt over. He hadn’t really thought much beyond that inevitable moment Newt found himself placed in Hufflepuff. He’d spent so much of his life up to that point constantly having to account for the future. It was a given when one happened to have the clumsiest little brother alive. Always having to remind him to tie his shoes when they’d been playing outside all day. Always reminding him to put his scarf back on after he’d take it off to climb a tree. Always reminding him the door was shut before he could turn and smack right into it.

But at that moment, he found that he wasn’t quite sure what to do next.

* * *

He let Newt grab a subtle hold of his blazer’s sleeve as they all filed out of the Great Hall.

“Did you eat your dinner?” he asked. Often Newt would forget to eat if he got too excited or too nervous or too focused on whatever it was he was focusing on at that exact moment. Newt nodded though, a little stilted as he eyed the other students. “Did you actually eat?” he pressed.

“I had some of the rolls,” he said.

It was better than nothing, he supposed.

He let Newt cling on until they got to the point that he was dreading. The staircase where their respective groups would branch off from one another. He would go down to the dungeon corridor, Newt down to the basement. They stopped, the other students barely sparing them a glance at they passed them by. Only one, Theseus recognized him from his own house, took notice. But even he only stopped long enough to make some mocking whimpers and earn some laughs from his friends. None of the other first years clung to their siblings, many of them didn’t even have a sibling to cling to. But Theseus would never be able to hold those moments of clinginess against Newt.

“You’ll like it,” he said. He accepted that very first time he sat down at the Slytherin table that he was never actually going to see the Hufflepuff dorms. Really, he had no idea if Newt would like them or not, but he didn’t need to know that.

But Newt still hesitated, staring after the people he would have to befriend, get to know, treat like family for the next ten months. The last of the students were about to pass them by, the stairwell already getting quieter and quieter as the majority of their groups got further way.

“You’ll be fine,” he said when it became clear Newt had no intention of following after them. A Hufflepuff prefect brought up the rear of the group and paused, looking curiously between the two. Theseus detached Newt’s hand from his sleeve, nudged him in her direction. “I’ll see you at breakfast, I promise.”

With reluctance, Newt followed after her, looking back at Theseus as he went, doing absolutely nothing to hide his look of utter despair. Theseus had to stop himself from rolling his eyes as Newt neared the edge of the landing and was still looking back at him.

“Mind the stairs!” he called. Newt looked forward in time to catch himself before he went tumbling down them. He took a tentative step, following it with another, and just like that, he was gone.

 _I should be with him,_ he thought.

* * *

The next morning, Newt made it down to breakfast in one piece. It took him a minute to spot him, but Theseus knew the moment he entered the Great Hall. No one else really looked up, each of them far too busy concentrating on staying awake enough to finish their breakfasts. But the unassuming creak of the door, the way life seemed to carry on seamlessly despite the new addition—he knew who it had to be. Newt stood on his tip toes, surveying the sea of groggy faces until he finally found Theseus.

He couldn’t help but smile as Newt glanced between Theseus and the table on the far side of the room where Hufflepuffs had crowded, some of them hunched over a copy of the Daily Prophet or a magazine or something of interest. Theseus let him stall out for only a moment. Finally, he took pity on him and subtly waved Newt over to the Slytherin table.

“Did you get it?” he asked as Newt made his way over, weaving around dawdling students. It was a little difficult to take in the tired way his eyes blinked. Newt’s bedhead was bad on a good day, that morning it looked near calamitous. Theseus was on the verge of asking him how much sleep he managed to get as well when Newt settled down on the bench next to him. There was something a little dangerous feeling about that, as though that was going a little too far. He didn’t think anyone would really care for Newt to sit at the Slytherin table, particularly early in the morning when half the school was still sleeping in. But he remembered something his father always liked to say. “It just takes one person to kick up a fuss,” and there was no shortage of Slytherins who were the type. He doubted there was a shortage of fuss-kickers in any of the houses.

But he didn’t want Newt to have to worry about that and he wiped away any evidence of concern with a well-practiced smile as Newt dug into the pocket of his blazer.

He pulled out his gift, the paper crumpled in his closed fist. To others it may have just been some trash he needed to throw away. But the moment he uncurled his fingers, the paper flitted up to life in the air between them, morphing seamlessly into a small bird. Flapping its paper wings, it soared around over top the table, weaving through the candles and beams. Largely unnoticed by the nearby students, it swooped back down and hopped its way along the table top.

“Thanks,” Newt said, a little smile breaking to the surface. It was the first smile he’d seen on him since their Hogwarts letters arrived. They watched as it plucked around pointlessly at Theseus’ plate in some kind of charade of a real bird.

Theseus had sent it after him the evening before. Once up in his own dorm he went about unpacking his things, carefully stowing all his clothes, his few scant knickknacks. A family photo, some bristles from his first broomstick, may it rest in peace.

He chewed his lip, his worry for Newt refusing to settle no matter how much he tried to distract himself. It was only when he was in the process of putting his books on the shelf—carefully and in alphabetical order by author—when he spotted a stack of used paper left over from the year before just at the bottom of his trunk. Cursive, neat and still a stark, even black against the white sheets, likely never to be read again. His roommates watched in interest as he took the stack to his bed and settled cross-legged before them.

With a simple flick of his wand, he transfigured them into a miniature jackdaw, only a fraction of the size of the ones that squawked incessantly in the meadow by their home. Newt had gotten into a nasty habit of feeding them years before, so naturally they made a nasty habit of coming back for more food whenever they got the chance to.

The boy in the bed to his right laughed at is dove around the room, shedding paper feathers in its maiden flight. It circled rather flamboyantly through each of the beds before returning to land demurely on Theseus’ finger.

“Who are you sending it to?” he asked. Perhaps he thought some girl had caught his eye at the ceremony of something. It couldn’t be further from reality, but Theseus didn’t even give him an answer as he whispered its destination in its ear. Without hesitance, it took off once more, swooping from the room and from the dungeons.

It wasn’t much, but it was the only way he could think to be with him.

* * *

Ideally, Newt would have made friends after at least a few days. But Theseus wasn’t exactly an idealist. Seeing that even after a few weeks he still walked to classes alone and he still ate by himself, Theseus was hardly surprised.

He spotted him only a month later in the courtyard. Newt made no pretense of doing homework or reading one of his assignments for class. He simply sat under the tree, knees nearly pulled to his chest. Theseus watched from the cloister, leaning against a column as Newt pulled something from his pocket.

By then he had all but forgotten about it. He assumed that Newt must have tossed it in the bin where really, it belonged. But he held his hand out before him and let the little bird come to life. As it rose to the air, it seemed a little weak—perhaps having spent too much time folded up and tucked away. It flew nonetheless, rising further into the branches of the tree before slowly circling its way back down to Newt.

The bird landed in his open palm, started preening free bits of loose, soft paper. And Newt smiled.

Theseus turned so abruptly that he nearly knocked into a passing student. While he did apologize, he didn’t stay long, opting instead to rush from the cloister altogether.

He didn’t know why that unsettled him so much. It was like a part of him had been kept, slipped away, folded up in Newt’s pocket all along.

“You should get rid of it,” he said later, hushed in the confines of the library one evening. They made a point to meet there at least once a week. It was Theseus’ responsibility to help Newt with whatever problems he had in his classes, checking up to make sure he was okay, that his grades didn’t slip. But beyond that, beyond the stagnancy of their near opposite schedules, the distance that always settled between them in the Great Hall, it was difficult to do much more than keep an eye on him from a distance.

Newt knew exactly what he meant, touching the pocket of his blazer unconsciously before he turned his full attention back to the books spread out before him.

* * *

They called him out of transfiguration when it happened. They were all of them stooped over their desks, trying to keep up with Dumbledore’s prattling when a slight knock on the door had them all pausing and looking up to the intrusion. One of the matron’s helpers peaked her head through the door. Dumbledore continued on with his endless lecture on the properties of _reparifarge_ , unaware until he noticed their turned faces.

“May I help you?” he asked, parking his hand on his hip.

Her eyes scanned the room before landing on Theseus. “I need Mr. Scamander,” she said.

The whispers didn’t wait. They surged up around him before it even sunk in that she had said his name and not some other kid’s. He wasn’t used to being called out of class in the first place. That was something left for troublemakers.

Dumbledore quieted the hushed curiosity with a simple wave of his hand. Like some kind of weird magic, everyone settled down. “Mr. Scamander,” he said, beckoning him over with a subtle flutter of his fingers.

Theseus followed the helper out into the hall and the second the door shut behind him, a cacophony of conversation erupted just behind it. In an attempt to ignore it, he let her lead him further down the corridor. The sound only lasted a moment though, Dumbledore likely having mollified it once more, dunking them back in silence right as they left the Transfiguration department.

After a few turns, his heart rate kicked up, suspicions mounting. It was only when the hospital wing game into sight, he finally spoke up over the roar of blood rushing to his brain. “May I ask what this is about?”

The woman paused and actually seemed to consider answering him, her naturally urgent gait slowed only minutely when continued on, her thoughts likely weighed by her options. “It’s probably best you see for yourself. It’s not an emergency, I can tell you that,” she said.

They turned the last corner and she didn’t hesitate to pull open the heavy hospital wing doors, stepping aside to let him through.

And there, just on the other side of the room, he saw his little brother.

The matron fussed over Newt as he attempted to dodge her grabby fingers. Eventually she managed to get a hold of his chin and started turning his head this way and that. At one point, she turned his face straight towards Theseus. Newt’s eyes widened when he saw him, painted over with some emotion Theseus wasn’t entirely sure of. Regret, fear, some mixture of bitter anxiety? Theseus wasn’t even sure the face he made when he saw the massive bruise, setting its way across the bridge of Newt’s nose. Those bright splotches of purple and blue were only maximized by the blood dripping down his nose, all but sluicing down his chin, ready to stain his uniform. It was all quite colorful in retrospect. And yet all he could think was that the world had just been ripped right out from under him.

“What happened?” he asked, trying his hardest to remain calm as he picked his feet up and crossed the room. His voice came out almost too quietly.

The matron tutted. “Boys these days. Reckless the lot of them. Might as well be walking around with your shoes untied. A broken nose is easy to fix though, you’re lucky for that.”

“Did you fall again?” He directed his question to Newt and the matron seemed almost offended to be ignored so blatantly. But Newt did not answer, choosing instead to look at the floor.

It was only then, eyes roaming his body for any other unnoticed injuries, that he saw Newt’s hands clutched tight in his lap.

The matron left, off to brew the potion she needed for the job as she muttered about disrespectful boys with every step along the way. Once the door fell shut behind her, Theseus wasted no time in prying Newt’s hands apart.

Damp, torn pieces of paper fell to the floor. The ink of whatever had been written on them had bled away, leaving only the faintest remnants of Theseus’ handwriting.

“Tell me what happened, Newt.” He tried to keep his voice even. The task wasn’t as easy for Newt as he spoke around frail words, giving up any pretense of silence.

“They took him,” he said, sounding too miserable, something bordering on bitterness. “Snatched him out of the air, threw him in a puddle… I tried to,” he slipped down from the bed and lifted the damp mess of what used to be the jackdaw. His blood, still dripping from his nose, blanched onto the wet paper with ease. “But someone tripped me.”

His ears rung, the words burning like a blister as they set in. “Someone?”

“I didn’t see who,” he said, a little too fast;

Theseus gripped the edge of the bed. “Just tell me, Newt. Or I’ll go and ask someone else. I’ll find out either way,” he said, making a valiant effort not to rip the sheet he held balled in his fist.

Newt hedged, taking deep breaths as he weighed his options and came up empty.

“Gregory Hall,” he said.

He knew Gregory Hall. Everyone knew Gregory Hall. Theseus might have been one of the few people in the school who hadn’t at some point become intimately acquainted with that particular fourth year’s brand of antagonism. Some professors couldn’t even claim that. But the fact that Hall was a Slytherin bit down to the quick far harder than Theseus expected it to.

“Gregory Hall,” he repeated, a kind of numbness washing over him.

“Please don’t do anything,” he said.

Without even a response, Theseus turned and strode from the hospital wing. The shouts of his name trailing after him became nothing more than a gentle call behind him, becoming quieter with each step he took.

The thing of it was, he knew exactly where Hall land his unmerry band of louses liked to skip class. Sometimes he’d spy them from the classroom window, trudging across the courtyard without a care for who saw them in their illicit activities.

So locating them was simple. Keeping his calm after seeing them was significantly less so.

Originally only intended to serve Hall a thorough verbal beat down. That would have been easy enough for him to do, it wasn’t as though Hall was in excess of enough wit to know what was happening. By the time he processed everything Theseus thought to say, Theseus could have been long gone. But seeing him there, laughing with his mates like nothing had even happened broiled something deep under his skin. How could someone hurt a person one minute, and laugh the next?

 _Only a monster could_ , he thought.

But that thought had barely come to fruition as he found, almost of its own accord, his wand out and extended, aimed right at Gregory Hall.

He stalked towards him, the incantation spitting free before he even settled on which one to pick. “ _Flipendo_.”

He struck his wand diagonally, sending Hall flying abruptly backwards from his group. They were all a little slow on the uptake, one second laughing and the next trying to figure out what the hell just happened. After looking around, dumbfounded, they finally spotted Hall and rushed off after him. But it wasn’t enough. It should have been enough, but before they could even parse out what Theseus had actually done, he brought his wand up a second time.

The incantation felt like ice on his tongue, sliding out on a breath as he propelled Hall back once more.

The third time—he could barely even remember doing it. All that was there was the sight of Hall flying back once more, his body smacking into a cloister beam nearly hard enough to shake the dead leaves on the roof free.

Still it wasn’t enough. Hall wasn’t even bleeding, probably not even bruised.

He lifted his wand for a fourth go. Took in a breath.

“ _Expelliarmus_.”

His wand flung from his grasp. The force of its ejection from his death grip on the handle was like the crack of a whip across his palm. He looked over and found Dumbledore, looking on in disturbed shock not two meters away. He kept his own wand carefully extended, pointed right to Theseus. The whole class stood clustered together behind him, some others from adjoining classes had joined them to see what all the fuss was about, wanting to get in on the spectacle.

Yet Theseus found he didn’t much care if they saw. He waited—and he would later hate himself for such an act of blatant dishonesty—for Dumbledore to slowly lower his wand. Theseus played the wandless, temped git, dropping his numb hand to his side. But once Dumbledore, coddled by his apparent acquiescence, went to store his own wand in his robe, Theseus lifted his bare hand once more, aiming it at Hall’s cowering, sniveling, whimpering form.

He didn’t even know if it would work. He had never done wandless magic before—nothing beyond the normal things children did before they knew how to control it. But he also knew he had to try. The first syllable barely made its way past his teeth when a hand, grip impossibly tight, seized his forearm and yanked him away.

Dumbledore’s expression had turned into something a little more towards the realm of horror. Perhaps horror that he’d been tricked by some kid. Perhaps horror that some kid would want so badly to hurt another that he would trick a professor. He didn’t know either way, but how the world spun just then cleared his thoughts, marginally, but enough. He found himself in a clearer world. Sky bright, sun still high in the sky as he was all but dragged from the courtyard, the sound of raucous laughter, waves of cheers, fading away behind a closed door.

* * *

Both of them stopped in front of him, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to look up at them from his seat by the window. He preferred to stare at their feet.

“I’m going to see how Newt is healing up,” she said, pausing. “Meet us there when you’re done?”

His father must have nodded or did that weird borderline telepathic shared look they would do sometimes, because without needing a response, he watched his mother’s heels walk away and disappear down the hall. It left only his father’s loafers behind. Without her there, it was a little easier to dare a look up, to take in the rest of his father. He looked fresh from work, cinder from the floo over still settled on his shoulders.

He didn’t look angry. And maybe with another parent that would have been a good sign. But his father had a habit of looking near constantly amused. Cheerful even, like there was something wonderful in every single part of life just waiting to be appreciated.

No, the lack of anger meant little. The lack of a smile meant so much more. None of that perpetual crook in his brow, his curious smirk lost somewhere between Hogwarts and Whitehall. It all hurt so much more than anything Theseus could imagine.

“Am I expelled?” he asked, eager to get the bad part over with, yet still not entirely sure he was ready for the answer.

His father gave him a second to marinate before he finally took mercy on him. “No.”

With a sigh, his father sat down on the bench next to him. “Had you done any damage to him, you would have been. For now, it’s detention. I think they are still deliberating on how long. I think ‘rest of his natural born life’ was thrown around some. You might still be here in your 90s, cleaning slugs from the greenhouses.”

Theseus appreciated his attempt at a joke. But being able to tell how little of his heart was in it just made him feel worse. He stared at the grout in the tile, nice even lines, easy to focus on.

“I wanted to hurt him,” he admitted. “Even now, I am mad he didn’t get hurt. He deserved to get hurt.” He wanted to take those works back. Only miserable people thought those kinds of things. Part of him wished he had gotten expelled. Maybe then he could just return home, never set foot in Hogwarts or public again. His mother probably needed some help with Hippogriffs, he could take on the family business. Didn’t matter if he could care less about creatures—if it meant never having to feel that repulsive emotion again, he didn’t care. “I’m a bad person,” he whispered, almost accepting.

“None of that now.” His father cut in before his thoughts could get any more out of control. He didn’t even have to look to know what he father was doing, leaning forward, trying to look into his eyes like doing so was some secret to helping him figure out that jigsaw puzzle of a brain of his. “Theseus,” he said when he refused to look up. “Look at me. No, look at me. Good. Listen to what I’m about to say. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone loses their temper. Everyone does things they regret. What is most important in all of this is: what have you learned?”

He hesitated, unsure of what to say and just as fearful of saying the wrong thing. Finally, he settled on the first thing that came to mind. “Think first.”

His father’s brow jumped and Theseus could tell it wasn’t the answer he expected. At least he didn’t seem displeased by it as he considered those words. “And what would you have done if you thought about it first?”

“I would have told a teacher who broke Newt’s nose,” he said. _Find a subtler way to get Hall back for it,_ his brain supplied.

His father sighed, ruffling his hair as he stood. “We’ve talked about this before, Theseus. You must let him learn to fight his own battles. You won’t always be there to fight them for him, and when that time comes, he needs to know how to make the right decisions for himself. He can’t learn to do that if he never gets the chance to now. Do you understand that?”

Theseus nodded, even if he wasn’t sure he actually did. There was something on the tip of his tongue he wanted to say, yet wasn’t sure he could. Newt was different. Always had been. Always would be. It was plain for anyone to see. Theseus seemed the only one willing to do anything about it.

His father looked him over and apparently Theseus didn’t need to say any of it. “Why don’t we put it like this then: you have to trust Newt. You’re his brother and he trusts you, I think it’s not a stretch to say you owe him that trust as well. Next time something like this happens, will you trust him?”

“Yes.” There wasn’t a question in his mind that he could do that.

His father smiled a little, motioning for him to get up.

“Maybe it’s time to pay him a visit, yeah?”

“Yeah.”


End file.
